Cream Cheese Tortilla Pinwheels or Lettuce Wraps

Flavorful Cream Cheese Tortilla Pinwheels are well loved appetizers that are popular on the party scene for their easy serving, wide variety of ingredient options, and simple prep.

Pinwheels can be made with a variety of ingredients to suite specific tastes and dietary restrictions.

We have added instructions for making these pinwheels as lettuce wraps for a low carb keto appetizer option. They can easily be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Cream Cheese Pinwheels are full of fresh ingredients, and you come together quickly with a food processor.

Watch How To Make Cream Cheese Tortilla Pinwheels

How do you keep Pinwheels from getting soggy?

If you are making Tortilla Pinwheels a day ahead of your event and you are using high moisture ingredients, here are some tips for how to keep them from getting soggy. First, it is best to create a barrier between the tortilla and wet ingredients using either well dried lettuce or spinach leaves.

Second, make sure your ingredients stay chilled to prevent warming and moisture build up while preparing. Once your Pinwheels have been assembled make sure you transfer them to the fridge immediately to keep everything chilled.

Third, take care to seal the container tightly with either a proper fitting lid or plastic wrap. If air seeps into the container your tortillas may dry out and crack which will allow the fillings to fall out when your guests are eating.

Looking for more Appetizer Recipes? Visit our complete Appetizer Section

Do you refrigerate Pinwheels before cutting?

Even if you are not making them ahead, pinwheels should be refrigerated before cutting them. This will help keep the ingredients and wrap together when slicing the pinwheels. Use a sharp knife when cutting the pinwheel shapes to avoid smashing them down.

How long are Cream Cheese Pinwheels good for?

If properly stored in an airtight container, Cream Cheese Pinwheels can last up to 4 days. Always place pinwheels in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Lay them in a flat layer and do not stack them on top of each other. This will help keep the shape of the pinwheels during storage.

Can Tortilla Pinwheels be Frozen?

Freezing pinwheels is a great way to make these appetizers ahead of time. To defrost pinwheels, put them in the refrigerator overnight and they will slowly come up to temperature.

How to freeze pinwheels

1. Lay pinwheels flat on a baking sheet
2. Place baking sheet in freezer
3. Flash freeze pinwheels until they are frozen solid
4. Remove frozen pinwheels from the freezer
5. Wrap each pinwheel tightly in plastic wrap
6. Put frozen, wrapped pinwheels in an airtight container or freezer bag.
7. Label freezer container with the date
8. Add the freezer container with pinwheels back into the freezer.
9. These pinwheels will last up to 2 months in the freezer
10. Defrost by putting them in the refrigerator overnight.

Cream Cheese Pinwheel Recipe-Two Ways

These easy appetizers can be made as either Cream Cheese Tortilla Wraps or lettuce wraps.

Tortilla Pinwheels are versatile and there are so many filling options for you to combine. Our Pastrami Wraps recipe and these Italian Sub Sandwich Tortilla Pinwheels by Lets Delish Recipes are also great party food or lunch options.

You can easily pack this delicious low carb recipe into a picnic cooler or set them out for your BBQ. Tortilla Pinwheels are a delicious cold appetizer that will stay food safe for several hours at room temperature.

For this appetizer recipe we wanted cute one inch rolls of yummy cream cheese filling rolled in a tortilla and cut into bite sized pieces.

The flour tortillas are durable and easy to manipulate on a party tray. For best handling choose white flour low carb tortillas.

Whole wheat low carb tortillas will work if fresh. However, they are more delicate than the white flour tortillas and may crack more easily.

What are Pinwheel Sandwiches made of?

Pinwheel sandwiches are made of tortillas, cream cheese, ranch dressing mix, green chiles, olives, celery, sweet red pepper, and diced bacon. These are versatile sandwiches and the ingredients can be substituted for taste and dietary restrictions. The base of pinwheel sandwiches is usually cream cheese. The vegetables can be swapped out to make different flavor varieties.

Lettuce Wraps:

Lettuce wraps are a surprisingly satisfying keto friendly version of the tortilla pinwheel.

The extra bit of crunchy texture and light lettuce flavor is refreshing and so much lighter than a tortilla. Romaine lettuce is one of the lowest carb vegetables. Choose Romaine for a keto Cream Cheese Lettuce Wrap.

Romaine lettuce has .9 grams of carbs in one of the large outer leaves. For our recipe we use 1/2 of a large leaf per lettuce wrap giving each wrap has less than half a carb gram per wrap.

For low carb tortillas, one of the low carb tortillas has about 6 net carbs. We chop them into one inch bites so you will get about a gram per tortilla pinwheel.

The cream cheese filling works fabulously for Lettuce Wrap Pinwheel Appetizers.

These lettuce wraps need to stay chilled if not serving immediately so they won’t wilt. We recommend preparing lettuce wraps just before serving.

How do you make Lettuce Wraps?

We have included instructions for these lettuce wraps into the recipe card for you. Here is the breakdown of the steps.

• Begin with large unblemished leaves of Organic Romaine lettuce.
• Lay the washed lettuce leaves flat on your cutting board.
• Cut along each lettuce rib all the way down on both sides.
• finish the cut so your leaf is two halves. Discard the rib.
• For each half:
  • Lay the half leaf flat and spread thinly and evenly with your cream cheese filling.
  • Roll tightly from the narrow end up.
  • Pierce with a toothpick if desired.

Lettuce wraps are a wonderful keto recipe. They make a tasty and healthy lunch recipe, healthy snack or appetizer ideas.

Ranch Dressing Cream Cheese Filling

Gluten Free Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing mix is fabulous in this cream cheese pinwheel filling. The flavor blend with the cream cheese is very good.

Ranch dry mix and cream cheese are the basic flavors of this filling with whatever add in you prefer.

You can add many ingredients to this filling base with great results.

You can make the cream cheese filling ahead, covering it with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until serving.

At serving just roll them up, cut and arrange on your trays.

What can I put in Cream Cheese Pinwheels?

• Finely chopped Sun dried Tomatoes
• Minced green onions
• Diced water chestnuts
• Sliced turkey
• Sliced chicken
• Crab
• Parmesan cheese
• Fresh jalapenos
• Lox
• Diced olives

Food Processor Instructions

To save quite a bit of time making the filling use your food processor for this recipe.

• Start with the vegetables and olives.
  • drop your veggies into your food processor and pulse three times. Add in the olives and bacon. pulse until evenly chopped.
• Add in the softened cream cheese in quarters along with the ranch mix. Pulse between additions.
• Using pre made bacon bits rather than cooking your own bacon will also save you time.
• If cooking your own bacon let it drain and then rough chop it before finishing it in the food processor with the other filling ingredients.
• Add cilantro and pulse to complete the cream cheese filling recipe.

Be careful not to over process this filling, otherwise it will become a paste. When it’s done it needs to spread evenly and easily onto your lettuce leaves or tortillas.